


Junkyard Friends

by ElementKitsune



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Horror Big bang, Isolation, Memory Suppression, Mental Breakdown, Psychological Horror, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 09:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14132877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElementKitsune/pseuds/ElementKitsune
Summary: Pidge doesn't remember the last time the castle took flight. Doesn't remember when was the last time she'd seen Green. Doesn't remember much of anything before landing on the planet with black sand.But the castle is working, and all her friends are here, and there isn't really a problem.(is there?)





	Junkyard Friends

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my fic for the VLD Horror Bang, and my artist for this is the amazing aetherlogic on tumblr. Go check out her amazing art!

**AFTER:**

The first thing (or, well,  _ things _ ) Matt notices about the planet are the sandstorms, honestly. It’s pretty noticeable when barrages of black sand are hurtling towards you fast enough to flay the flesh from your bones like some of the worse ones on Earth.

The second thing he notices is the glint of silver on the horizon, past the sandstorms and almost swallowed up by burnt orange skies, and then there’s some blue and more silver until finally all the sand has settled. After that, all there is is the castle, regal against the horizon.

“So this is where Voltron ended up,” Dad muses, and Matt’s hands curl tighter around his staff.

_ Some defenders, _ he wants to say, except he’s been part of an intergalactic rebellion for years now and it’s hard enough to fight when you have an entire organization of worlds behind you. He can’t imagine what it was like for the Voltron pilots, fighting without any allies at their sides most of the time. He doesn’t  _ want _ to imagine what it was like.

“I guess so,” he mutters instead, and swallows around the thoughts that Katie would have answered for way longer than that, rambling until someone mustered up the ability to cut her off.

(he misses home)

(sometimes, Matt wonders what the Galra ships in orbit had done)

Dad hums, then marches towards the door, slow and sturdy but still limping towards it. They’re a matching pair, Matt thinks, both with their right leg lost, and then mentally shakes his head. Maybe this isn’t the time to indulge in homesickness and morbid humour.

...he still does it anyway.

Nothing like a little hopelessness when you’re staring at the doors of where the universe’s last hope had disappeared to when you needed them the most. Just  _ after _ they had given you hope, only to let Zarkon crush your hearts in the palm of his hand and grind the remainder into dust.

“Matthew, please don’t dwell on that right now,” Dad says, and Matt takes himself through the realization that he’d thought out loud again, shoves the bitterness down to a part of himself that he can take care of later.

“Sorry Dad,” he sighs, and rests a single hand on the door, looks up at how it reaches impossibly high into the sky. “Should we open it?”

From his position, he can’t really see the look on Dad’s face, but he’s seen enough wrinkles of contemplative worry and steel in his eyes to make a perfect copy. The frown probably starts to sneak in right about now, as Dad weighs the pros and cons and tries to decide if it’s worth it.

Instead of getting a verbal answer, Matt gets Dad pushing open the door. It’s more efficient than words anyway.

Fixing his grip on his staff, he waits for creatures to emerge from the castle, to find out if there was something from the depths of it that had stopped the heroes from coming back.

Nothing jumps out at them. Matt shares a glance with Dad, and then they enter.

The inside of the castle is made of blues and blacks and silvers, with specks of sand having snuck their way through even though Matt’s pretty sure that this is a  _ space _ ship and therefore should be airtight instead of sandloose. 

(okay, sandloose isn’t a word)

(it’s a better thing to focus on than the feeling of derision that feels like it’s seeped into his soul)

When they walk through the entryway, it’s with every step feeling like an avalanche, sound echoing through it like it’s trying to swallow the castle whole. Matt thinks of empty space, of whether a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if no one was there to hear it, if a castle for the stars could really crumble into pieces if there was no one to watch it happen.

And then he thinks about whether heroes would still be heroes if they didn’t have anyone to watch them, which is a good enough motivator to stop that train of thought.

Even if it hadn’t, Dad’s whisper cuts through the air—“Matthew, don’t move.”

Matt readies his staff, turns as still as a corpse. An echoing step resounds from around the left corner.

Voltron, he wonders, and tries not to sneer.

That’s when Dad looks at him, worried and warning all at once, and gives him a single tiny nod.

Matt dashes around the corner and jabs his staff forward, waiting for the moment it would strike against flesh and he’d take  _ whoever _ it is down before he gets a good look and freezes an inch before a small, pale nose.

Katie doesn’t blink. Just moves her gaze from the end of the staff to Matt’s face to over his shoulder where Dad has probably appeared.

(she’s wearing green armour, he notices, thinks  _ Voltron paladins lions green lion green paladin green armour _ and fights the urge to suddenly throw up)

When satisfied with whatever she sees, Katie nods her head, still uncaring of the staff in front of her face. And then she speaks and Matt feels like shattering to pieces, hears Dad’s choked sob and the stutter from Matt’s own lips, “K-K-Katie?” like reading words through shattered lenses.

Remembers sassy eyebrow raises and mischievous smiles and tries to find them in her empty eyes.

Katie tilts her head almost mechanically, and Matt considers that he might actually be sick as she repeats her question.

_ Are you real? _

* * *

**THEN:**

The numbers on her laptop were starting to all blur together, which probably meant that she needed a break but Pidge knew that she was  _ close _ to cracking the code if she could just  _ find the pattern— _

Lance dropped onto her back out of nowhere, and Pidge nearly toppled under the sudden weight before catching herself.

“What d’you want?” she grumbled, and blinked away the blurriness of her screen. Except, that was when Lance stretched out a too long arm and closed her laptop before she could react.

Pidge blinked again at the sudden lack of a screen, then slowly turned her head towards Lance, who merely grinned back at her. His smile was smug and unapologetic, and it somehow absolved her any guilt that she could have gained when she shrugged her shoulder and made Lance fall.

_ “Well,” _ he huffed from the ground, and Pidge did not stifle her snickers. “That was rude.”

She just grinned back at him, tired and mischievous all at once. “Whoops.”

“Piiiiiidge,” he whined, and Pidge just draped herself over him in response. (there was some guilt when her elbow ended up digging into his stomach and Lance ended up wheezing out a breath)

“Laaaaance,” she mimicked. Lance sighed dramatically and started to say something, but that was when the sound of the alarm cut through the air and they couldn’t really say anything at all.

Their eyes met for a second, before they unscrambled themselves and started to dash to the bridge. Halfway through, it morphed into a race, and despite Lance’s long gangly legs and tendency to cheat, Pidge still bolted through the door first.

(she didn’t victory dance like she’d used to do after beating Matt, but the urge was there.)

Allura turned to them, face stern but hints of amusement in her eyes. “Paladins,” she said drily. “How kind of you to appear.”

Pidge opened her mouth, but then shut it. Not the time for sarcastic banter battles, as fun as they were. “Yeah, what’s up?” she asked instead, and glanced around at the others. Considering that their expressions were fairly neutral (well, for them. Shiro was the only one with a  _ real  _ neutral face; Keith was just grumpy and Hunk slightly nervous like he tended to be, and Coran was already manning some controls so she couldn’t see  _ his _ face), Allura hadn’t explained yet.

Allura tapped a finger against the control panel, and blue screens appeared all over the room, one in front of each paladin.

“Planet Daibazaal,” Pidge read aloud, and then whipped her head towards Coran. “Is this—”

“The ruins of the Galra homeworld, yes. There are unusual amounts of quintessence building up within the remains, and we’ve decided it’d be prudent to, forgive my language, find out  _ what the quiznak _ is going on.” The tone was detached and clinical, and Coran hadn’t moved except for the way his fingers leapt across the control panel to bring up different Altean texts only to shut them down again.

Pidge might have seen his shoulders shake. She didn’t want to know if she was right about that.

That’s when Shiro cleared his throat, drawing all of their attention towards him. “Let’s suit up.”

They slid down the chutes, and when they were seated in their lions and out of the hangers into the stars...

They started to explore Daibazaal.

* * *

**NOW:**

The code on her laptop is all blurring together again, and Pidge blinks sleep out of her eyes. There’s the feeling that she should be doing…  _ something _ , but also the feeling of not doing that something and honestly, it’s just really hard to code and find your family when all that’s happening is that numbers are swimming in and out of each other while the normal steps of coding are falling out of sync.

Pidge pinches the bridge of her nose, and when that does absolutely nothing, she takes off Matt’s glasses and rubs her eyes.

After a (very, very) brief break, Pidge perches the glasses back onto her nose and readies herself for round two of coding. She steeples her fingers, stretches, narrows her eyes, and then gets back to typing.

That, of course, is when a hand gently pushes her laptop closed and Pidge is faced with Lance’s not-quite Cheshire Cat grin.

“Why are you always the one who tears me away from my coding in the middle of the day?”

“There’s a Pidgeon duty roster,” he tells her, and dodges when Pidge swats at him. “I’m just lucky enough to always be there when you’re overworking yourself!” 

“Shut up,” she says flatly, because swimming numbers and coding failures took more energy than expected, and Lance just ruffles her hair. It feels like playful defiance even though he  _ has _ stopped needling her.

Either way, it doesn't stop Pidge from grumbling at him as she rubs at her eyes again, taking off her glasses and hooking them into her shirt.

"I don't need a defense squad," she huffs.

From the way that Lance attempts to subtly remove her from her computer and steer her towards the general direction of their rooms in the castle, she can't help but think that he disagrees.

Then he tells her as much,  _ so _ .

He definitely disagrees.

Pidge doesn't  _ approve _ of this, to be honest. She has work to do, even though dyscalculia is rearing up like that disaster with the Altean language learning system and code is just swimming in her head and before her eyes until she just wants to cover up the computer and focus on the first five numbers above all else.

(A thing she realizes she misses from Earth: making coding playlists. Making coding playlists—number playlists, really, had always helped to keep her in sync with it)

(the hardest part of being a supreme space paladin hacker may be the fact that there's no such thing as being able to have lullabies crooning into her ears as she takes apart Galra systems at the seams)

"You gonna go to sleep?" Lance asks, bumping her with his hip at the same time.

Pidge ends up yawning in response, carefully clutching the glasses in her hands even as she walks. Then leans towards Lance, wonders if he’d just finished with cryopod cleaning. He isn't exactly as warm as usual.

"Maybe," she answers, and then yawns again. Blinks so hard that she thinks she might see stars—and  _ there _ was the splitting headache eyeache thingy that always occurred when staring and concentrating on a screen for too long. "Definitely," she amends, and ignores Lance's amused snort.

"Alright Pidgeotto," he chimes, and steadies an arm around her waist as she keeps, keeps, keeps swaying to the sides.

"Pidgeotto is such an old Pokemon," she mutters under her breath, tries to blink away the sleep. "You're such a video game nerd."

She can't  _ see _ Lance, but she  _ can _ imagine the way his nose would likely wrinkle in amusement as a response, and can feel the huff as air expands and contracts through his lungs.

(Pidge has never been particularly good at biology, but she remembers it when interspersed with space)

(you're supposed to make sure not to hold your breath in space, because the vacuum starts to pull all the air away and if you try to hold it in, all it does is rupture your lungs)

(of course, if you're stuck out in space with no oxygen to begin with, you're not likely to have the longest lifespan anyway)

(Pidge still can't help but wonder if this trivia would be necessary someday)

Lost in her thoughts, she doesn't really notice how Lance keeps gently ushering her to her room, until she's passed through the door and is in the messy heap of souvenirs, occasional fluff balls, and the sculptures (if that was the right word) of her friends that she had made after that wormhole gone wrong.

Pidge steps over the objects on the floor without disturbing a single one, and lets a single sleepy smirk creep onto her face when Lance stubs his toe against something and hisses a swear in Spanish.

"Language," she chides, and snickers when Lance's reaction is to gently cuff her over the head.

"Go to sleep, mocosa," he says wryly. "You at least deserve some."

"Mission wasn't that hard," she grins, but ends up lying down on the bed anyway, sleep fogging her vision and being helped along by the way Lance threads his fingers through her hair.

"Wasn't that hard for  _ you _ , maybe, but for those of us who aren't tech inclined—"

"So you, Keith, and Shiro—"

"Shush, you bratty genius." He flicks her forehead. "Now, as I was  _ saying _ , for those of us who aren't tech inclined, it isn't exactly the easiest thing to just stand around the ruins of a dead planet and wait for you and Hunk to report all of your totally awesome findings. Because it's, well. A dead planet."

Pidge yawns, tries to keep her gaze on Lance even though her eyelids are getting heavier, heavier...

"Daiba--" The word cuts off into a yawn. "Daibazaal was pretty cool to experiment with," she says, but it comes out more like  _ Daibza wus preey cool ta expermen wi _ and her head is so, so heavy and comfortable against the mattress even though it isn't exactly Allura's bed and Pidge just

Sleeps.

Maybe Lance kisses her forehead as he leaves the room. Seems like a Lance thing to do.

She has good dreams.

* * *

**THEN:**

“Are we sure that it’s a good idea to go into planetary rubble that probably has a magic field around it without any sure safeguards  _ against _ the magic field?” Hunk asked nervously, and Pidge could almost see his worried look that would probably morph into an  _ I told you so _ and a Rolo spiel (except with Daibazaal) if his worries were proven right.

“No,” she heard Keith mutter into the comms, no hesitation whatsoever.

There was a moment of silence as they all took that in, before Lance erupted into crackly snickers and Shiro was sighing in that way that really meant he was trying to control his laughter before he ended up wheezing. Hunk made this offended noise, like all the air in Yellow had whooshed into his lungs and was hissing out, and that’s what ended up making Pidge snort and laugh like a hyena.

When the giggles had died down, they started up again as Lance mimicked Hunk’s offended state, and Pidge could hear Shiro let out some chuckles of his own until he finally prodded them towards their goal.

“Alright team, let’s focus on the mission before we have to do another defense test.”

Considering the fact that Allura’s delight whenever she and Coran got to test out the security system was frankly terrifying, they didn’t need more motivation after that.

Although, the lions apparently were still up for having a little fun. It was pretty obvious with how Green was prompting Pidge into doing loop de loops and playfully flicking the other lions with their tail. 

“Not now, girl,” she huffed, but let tendrils of amusement curl towards Green in a silent agreement for later.

Green sent her images of playing in asteroid fields, dancing in space and playing hide and go seek with the stars. Then Pidge ran her hand over the control panel and Green stopped, even though she remained a quiet rumble in the back of her mind.

That helped Pidge shake herself out of the feeling of just  _ being _ Green-but-Pidge-but-Green and focus on the rubble in front of them.

“So this is Daibazaal,” she said speculatively, and didn’t realize it was out loud until Hunk’s humming came through the comms. Then she continued her train of thought anyway. “It’s pretty empty here. Like, I get that it’s, well. A destroyed planet, but it’s just—”

The words were there on the tip of her tongue, she  _ knew _ what she wanted to say, but there was just. There was something about seeing the ruins of the planet themselves, because it was still somehow in the shape of the planet and there were bits and pieces of what was someone’s  _ home _ drifting through dead space.

It could have the place where someone messaged their dad every night even though they were technically not supposed to. Could have been where someone played with whatever a Galran space pet had been ten thousand years ago. Could have been where someone said goodbye to their family for the last time.

“We get it,” Keith said quietly. Maybe he was thinking of deserts and missing years. Pidge’s thoughts were definitely straying towards the latter. Either way, despite the sudden aching for  _ home, _ for Mom and Dad and Matt and Bae Bae and peanut butter cookies, for life before Kerberos—

Pidge pushed the thoughts out of her head. She could think about those  _ after _ they found the source of the quintessence readings.

So she moved her gaze from the debris to Green’s dashboard, and let the slow rumble wash over her until all Pidge thought of for a moment was binary, zeros and ones and zeros and ones and how all the universe was a  _ code, _ really, and all she needed to do today was decode this one.

(when the numbers eventually started to fade in and out and blur together in her head, like they always did, Matt’s voice drifted into her thoughts with songs and memories and the mental playlist helps)

Pidge opened her eyes, and the control panel blinked.

“I think I found something!”

Green turned to the left, and Pidge felt the pinprick in the back of her mind that meant Green was getting impatient. And the thing was, Green was a powerful alien space lion who just happened to really love Pidge. Green was not a  _ reasonable _ powerful alien space lion who just happened to really love Pidge. So, what Pidge did when the rumbling started was wince, hold onto her control panel, and hiss into the comms—

“Guys,  _ Green is in a playful mood.” _

There was the distinct sound of staticky not- _ quite _ silence, and then the even more distinct sound of Shiro taking a deep breath, and hissing the air out through his teeth.

“W _ hat other lions are going haywire?” _ crackled the comm. When Keith, Hunk, and Lance all chimed in at once, Pidge felt something sink into her stomach, settling like a rock at the bottom of the ocean.

And then the rock was immediately subjected to Green dancing around on meteors, which  _ did not help _ .

(Pidge took a brief moment to be grateful for Hunk and the fact that his motion sickness had decreased at least a little bit in Yellow. Then took another moment to think about  _ just how fast _ Red could be, and there was a sympathetic wince for Keith)

“Is there any chance of you stopping!” she partly asked, mostly yelled, and Green only did this rumbly purr which relaxed Pidge even as she became more irritated.

“ _ INCOMING!”  _ Lance squawked over the comm, and Pidge  _ pulled _ the controls. 

Green swooped up, curving over Blue’s racing form, and even batted at Blue’s tail during the flip. The smugness of being able to play around like this even though Pidge had scolded Green slowly sank into Pidge’s mind, and she was— 

“Really girl?” she asked instead of pinning down what exactly was she feeling towards Green, who simply preened in response.  _ “Really?” _

The  _ feeling _ washed over her, of energy and thrumming and something poking at all her senses and  _ wow _ it was a rush when quintessence bled into her veins, went into her gears and made everything hum with even  _ more _ life than she already had, like they were absorbing all the energy of a rift—

—and then Green-Pidge-Katie- _ Green’s  _ mouth started to open gaping wide and Pidge-Green-Pidge could feel the vacuum pulling pulling pulling—

—“Green,” her mouth said, “what are you doing?”

Then the inside of the lion went dark, and Pidge was sent careening into space.

* * *

**NOW:**

Pidge groans from where her back had slammed into the wall. “Ow,” she mutters (the slightest bit petulant), and hears Keith snort from where he had  _ launched her into the wall _ . “Your kicks didn’t use to be that hard.”

Keith shrugs, a smirk steady on his lips. And then he hefts his sword. “Ready for another round?”

She can  _ hear _ the teasing lilt in his tone, and Pidge just scowls back, even as she stands with her bayard ready. And then she promptly uses the grappling hook of her bayard to make it loop around his leg and  _ pulls _ , until his leg is swept out under him and Keith falls to the ground, his sword making a  _ very _ audible clang on impact.

(it feels louder than it should be)

(the sound hits her right before the sword hits the ground and it feels out of sync, like when birds start chirping before the sun breaks up the night)

(Pidge switches those feelings off, and the ache in her chest disappears)

“I win this time,” she grins, and the smile on her face is stretched out like a cat’s.

Keith rolls his eyes and her and then  _ yanks _ on the cord until she is left sprawled out next to him, face feeling kind of bruised and bayard still firmly in her hands.

“Next time,” he says, “remember to let go.”

“Not all of us have swords that return to our hands,” she grumbles and Keith picks her up and Pidge

remembers

**THEN**

“Pidge,” Keith had said. “You have to leave us. You have to go.”

_ No, no I won’t I won’t I won’t— _

**NOW**

“—won’t let go,” she hears herself say. “I’m good enough to find another way.”

The response to that statement is a raised eyebrow, a snort, and a pointed look at the bayard still wrapped around Keith’s leg.

Pidge returns the look, and remorselessly activates her bayard to send a shock into his system. (It isn’t a  _ shock  _ shock; more like when you rub your socks against the carpet or your hair stands on end enough that you spark every time you touch another person)

Keith twitches, then his arm spasms and ends up hitting Pidge in the stomach—her own fault for not moving away, she concedes, but she’s pretty sure that  _ Keith isn’t supposed to be able to hit this hard through her armour _ .

She ends up curling up a bit, with air being forced out of her lungs, and in the next moment Keith has moved his arm to around her shoulder and just. Waits for Pidge to remember what air is. And he is so, so strangely cold.

* * *

**THEN:**

Open space isn’t exactly cold—at least, not in the way that people usually think of. When the average person thinks of the cold, they don’t think of vacuums and stars too far away to warm you. They think of snow, and biting winds, and a chill which first kisses your skin before sinking deeper and deeper, until your lips want to turn blue, there’s puffs of air coming out with every breathe, and your body has gone to numbness.

Space doesn’t bother with the forewarning that this is going to suck.

When you’re thrown into open space, it first reminds you that you are  _ alone. _ There is an endless field of burning stars and you’re not anywhere near one—you’re in the ninety percent which is a vacuum, which is so empty that temperature doesn’t really exist.

It’s just Pidge, and Green behind her, and her tiny little human body trying to emit enough heat to outlast an infinite vacuum, only succeeding because the Alteans have made damn good suits.

And then Pidge drifted away a little farther, and farther, until she finally gained the presence of mind to use her jetpack and the counter momentum just let her. Stop.

When she turned back (slowly, because she didn’t want to start spinning away when the lions were malfunctioning and she had  _ no _ idea what had happened to the others), Green’s eyes were glowing yellow like the sun in a child’s picture—startlingly bright and solid.

It—it was bordering on the edge of Not Right, because Green (and all of the lions, really) had glowing eyes when they were awake and  _ that _ was something that Pidge was used to. But the glowing was  _ more _ right now, and it was. It wasn’t Right.

(there was something screaming in the back of her head, something telling her to take Green and her friends and run back to the castleship, to sail out of these ruins and never look back)

(Pidge took that instinct and swallowed it down, because she was a paladin with a mission even if Green had just spat her out)

And that’s when Green sailed in front of her, giant head tilted in front of Pidge like she was going to pick Pidge back up. Like she was done with goofing off. There was a low rumble, and Green opened her mouth wide, the bottom of her jaw brushing against Pidge’s hand almost in apology.

The warmth swelled up in her again, and Pidge rested her head against Green’s, even though it made her feel impossibly small. After a moment, she pushed herself up and in, and Green’s mouth closed around Pidge  _ right _ before the world shook.

(on the bright side, whatever had hit Green sent Pidge spiralling into the control board and then sliding into the pilot’s chair with a bit more bumps than she’d started out with so. Points for speed?)

Then, the control panel lit up, and her comms suddenly burst into life. 

_ “C’mon boy,” _ she heard Hunk whisper, and oh, that’s right, all of the other lions had gone loopy too.  _ “C’mon.” _

“Guys?” Pidge asked, and then winced when a crackle of static almost snapped at her ear. Then that’s when the  _ voices _ started to come through, and maybe Pidge had winced a bit more.

_ “Pidge, where  _ **_are_ ** _ you?”  _ Lance hissed, and then there was something that sounded like an explosion and Pidge didn’t answer Lance’s question, just shot off one of her own.

“Where are  _ you?” _

That was the moment when Green got knocked into a meteor and whoops, looked like there was a Galra battlecruiser that she didn’t notice before. The wonders of focusing on one problem at a time like when your lion apparently got high on quintessence and decided to go for a loopy joyride.

“Plant cannon,” said Pidge quietly, and Green  _ roared. _

(she took a moment to wonder how the plants didn’t freeze in the middle of space, how it wasn’t ice piercing through the battleship but instead the plants curling around it and  _ squeezing _ until it broke)

(and then she remembered that Green was a magic alien space lion machine and Pidge was a soldier whose friends were in danger  _ right now _ and Pidge saved the wondering how how how for later)

Pidge pushed the thrusters forward, and breathed in in in. And out.

“Let’s go girl.”

* * *

**NOW:**

“When was the last time we went on a mission?” Pidge asks one day, and sees Hunk freeze for a millisecond before continuing to experiment in the kitchen. It’s almost fast enough for her not to realize, but the neon green liquid (which is glowing in a rather suspicious fashion for something that isn’t supposed to be edible just  _ once _ ) spills a few droplets onto the counter. Hunk doesn’t really spill things onto the counter.

So, Pidge hops off of the stool she’d brought in a  _ long _ time ago for when they worked on experiments in the kitchen or around the dinner table, and sidles up next to Hunk as he continues to mix things into the neon green pre-goo.

“You spilled some,” she says, and Hunk pauses. Turns his head to look at Pidge. Then looks at the goo which is starting to sink into the pristine counter and stain it green.

“Quiznak,” he groans, and Pidge snickers even as she pats his arm because that is what Pidge does whenever Hunk is annoyed.

(except his arm feels too—too rigid under her palm. Hunk is strong, but even the most built human in the universe should have at least a little bit of give in their muscles. They’re not made of steel)

(so)

(why does Hunk feel like it?)

(maybe Pidge had just been too light with patting his arm)

**THEN**

There was steel under her fingers, stiff and freezing and—

It wasn’t human. It was close enough.

**NOW**

Hunk pokes her side, and Pidge scrunches her nose before dipping her fingers in neon green liquid. Then, because she hasn’t been on a mission (or just to see Green) for far,  _ far _ too long, Pidge gives into the rising itch of boredom and flicks the goo around just to see how it lands.

This results in her earning a patented Look TM , but you know, she’ll clean it up later and she  _ tells _ Hunk that. The Look TM falls after a moment, being replaced by Hunk’s experiment smile, and he pokes her cheek.

“Stop it,” she grumbles, and swats him.

“Alright,” Hunk obliges, but it’s not before Pidge’s hand makes contact and—

—her hand  _ stings. _

* * *

**THEN:**

Her hands were starting to sting from holding onto the controls so tight but she couldn’t let go she couldn’t she couldn’t—

Green went faster and faster and springboarded off a meteor—

_ Faster girl faster, _ she thought, except there was an explosion right on Pidge-Green-Pidge’s heels and  _ she needed to get to her team. _

Green twisted under her hands, all around her, and they somersaulted in mid-air (mid-space?) even as they blasted the drones racing after them.

“I’m almost there!” she huffed into the comms.

(no one said anything maybe they were busy that had to be it no one said  _ anything _ )

—Green launched a plant blast and they cracked through the meteor, and that was how she found her friends.

Everyone at a rift even bigger than Voltron, with the castleship’s shields up and swarmed by Galra drones. And then that was when the blast came from the corner of her eye, just to slam into the castleship and send it spiralling into the rift.

Pidge. Pidge  _ moved. _

“I’M HERE!” she felt herself scream because  _ I’m here I’m here I’m here _ and Shiro yelled “ _ Form Voltron”  _ as the static crackle-bzzted in her ear and they were moving moving moving—

—Form Voltron and they did and they did and it wasn’t just Pidge-Green-Pidge anymore it was Pidge-Green-Hunk-Yellow-Lance-Blue-Keith-Red-Shiro-Black- _ Voltron _ and they  _ charged _ —

—straight into the rift into glowing yellow quintessence even as the lions roared and the controls rippled under fingers before growing solid solid solid—

(she still thought  _ this is my fault I should have been quicker _ )

—and Voltron took hold, because the shields were falling had fallen with the blast, and they  _ pulled _ —

(she was still thinking  _ this is my fault this is my fault _ )

( _ I am Pidge I am Katie Holt I am at fault _ )

—and they pulled hard enough to yank it out of the rift—

(it was gravity pulling them in, Pidge looked at the rift and thought quintessence thought they needed to get away thought  _ Voltron is the strongest weapon in the universe _ )

(thought  _ not the quickest _ )

—and then the castleship was out but there were voices in her head  _ Pidge Pidge Pidge  _ and questions and the soft tendril of worry against her cheek and  _ she couldn’t do this right now _ —

( _ This is my fault my fault my _ )

—and that was when Voltron broke apart.

* * *

**NOW:**

“Do you ever miss Matt and Dad?” she hears herself ask Shiro one day, and Shiro blinks at her for a moment.

For a second she’s wondering if she opened up a sore spot, wondering  _ why _ she mentioned it in the first place before his smile breaks onto his face (his teeth shine, maybe, maybe just a little), teeth showing at first before fading into something wistful.

“Sometimes,” he says, and it’s soft, it feels genuine, it feels  _ real— _

(not)

—and there’s still something about it that makes her feel twitchy and unsatisfied, like when she’s been cut off from her last few sips of coffee.

“What reminds you of them?” she prods, and Shiro blinks at her again.

“Well, you, obviously,” he says, and Pidge curls a finger in her hair. “Things like commentary on Coran’s cooking, or disarming Galra ships the…”

“Non-explosive way?”

He chuckles, and it makes her feel warm. “Yeah, the non-explosive way.”

There’s not really much more for her to say, so Pidge doesn’t push it. Just lets the conversation drift away until they’re sitting in peaceful silence, and her thoughts are somewhere close to serene.

It’s nice.

(she ignores the itch of wrongness that threatens to disturb it)

* * *

**THEN:**

When Pidge blinked, the world was dark and silent. Green rumbled around her, like a dragon guarding its treasure, and that was the only sensation for a moment. Rumbling rumbling rumbling, until feeling came back to her head and her arms and just body in general and—

Oh.

Her helmet was cracked. Her armour was cracked.

(blood trickled down her temples, a feeling all too familiar and she thought  _ she’s cracked, she’s cracked _ )

(as long as it wasn’t Matt’s glasses)

She lifted her head from where it’d been resting on the control panel (and Pidge saw a dent and winced, taking a moment to wonder at how well made was Altean armour before getting her mind back on track) before looking around, very carefully Not Paying Attention to the drop of red that rolled from her forehead, dripped down to her cheek, and trickled the rest of the way like a tear track.

“Green?” she murmured quietly, and Green’s rumbles spiked in volume—

— _ you’re not safe just yet _ .

There was a prodding in her mind, a hidden whisper to look outside and see what had happened. And so Pidge did that, feeling sweat on the back of her neck that made her hair stick uncomfortably, and blinking through red-stained eyelashes.

When she looked outside, there was a sea of yellow and purple through green hexagons, swirls dipping in and out of her vision like the spots that happened when you squeezed your eyelids closed too tight.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” she muttered under her breath, and squashed the thought that she hadn’t been in the metaphorical Kansas for a long, long time at this point.

Green still rumbled something a bit like laughter though, so the Wizard of Oz reference wasn’t a complete disaster for her head. Pidge managed a weak smile at that, then blinked once, twice, breathed in ( _ go, _ whispered her dad,  _ be great _ ), and started to slowly pilot Green to find…

Anyone, really.

They drifted in empty space (if you could even call it that), and Pidge…

Pidge waited.

* * *

**NOW:**

There are things, she reflects, that could be more comfortable than waiting half in a vent and half out as Coran whistles off for the latest tool that he needs.

The benefits of being small, she guesses, though hanging on like a particularly determined cat doesn’t feel like much of a benefit at the moment.

“Toodley hoo!” calls Coran as he slides down the hallway, and Pidge temporarily wonders if teaching him that toodles was a form of (admittedly rare) slang word for greetings and goodbyes was a good idea. Then again, he seems to be having fun with toodley hoo  _ and _ sock sliding, so it works.

When he reaches her, she grabs the tool between her feet and shimmies into the vent until she finds the break. It’s very noticeable considering all of the black sand that almost billows out of it, forming a pool at the bottom of the crack.

“Shouldn’t the shields keep this out?” she calls even while she welds the breakage closed, and runs the Altean tool (she thinks it’s called a kijadar, but Pidge can  _ never _ remember how to pronounce the names) over the bump the welding caused. When done, it’s as smooth as the rest of the walls, like nothing ever happened. Good as new.

“They’re doing their best, but systems still aren’t up to snuff after the last battle!” Coran answers, and she can’t  _ see _ him, but she can imagine the way his moustache twirls around his finger and a needlessly dramatic pose because those are honestly a lot of fun.

Pidge nods, realizes that he can’t see  _ her, _ flushes a bit, and shouts out an affirmative. Then, “Coran, what do we do with this sand?”

There is the none-too-subtle pause of someone who doesn’t know what to do with this either, before the even  _ less _ subtle sound of steps hitting the ground and echoing out of existence.

With a sigh, Pidge shimmies a bit away from the sand until her legs are firmly out, and once again dangles like an unimpressed cat until she finally drops to the floor. When Coran comes back, her arms are aching a bit and her core is aching a bit and her shoulders are aching a bit and Pidge is trying to remember the last time they did a training session. Like, an  _ actual _ training session, not Keith agreeing to spar with her until someone refuses to get up from the ground. 

She opens her mouth to ask that (and maybe all of the other questions starting to pop up in her head, like how long had they been here, why was it long enough for black sand to creep up on the edges of the central corridors, and what happened to the shields, and when was the last time they’ve gone to pilot the lions) when Coran smoothly steps around her and pulls out the weird vacuum suction thing that looks vaguely like a pinwheel made out of balloons.

“Can I press the button this time?” she asks instead, because apparently strange Altean tools outrank everything else in matters that aren’t of life and death, and Coran graciously hands it over with a twitch of his mouth. Or, rather, twitch of his moustache but she knows what’s causing the movement.

As the incredibly mature person she is, Pidge sticks out her tongue, and then revs the dial up to full blast.

A loud  _ FWOOM FSSSSSSSSSH  _ erupts from the pinwheel balloon as it spins so fast her glasses stick to the bridge of her nose from the force of it, and Pidge cackles even as Coran dives for cover. The sand brushes past him, and she can see for a moment something—

( _ the sand is corrosive to most common metals _ , she remembers someone saying, before the mission that had brought them into the rift.  _ Its danger to organic materials is primarily the force generated by the high wind speed onworld. _ )

(the word corrosive sticks in her head, even as she thinks she sees something like the crack she’d just welded appear on Coran’s hand)

Pidge points the pinwheel balloon up, letting the black sand swirl around her and above her, and back and forward before finally  _ in _ the pinwheel. Then, she turns the dial with a satisfying click, and blows at the center where everything was sucked up because, well. Why not?

It reminds her of Mom’s western movies, how they always completed the task, whether it was a shoot out or just a contest, and blew at the nozzle of their guns. So, with the vacuuming task completed, Pidge turns her head to Coran and offers a hand to him.

(she can’t help how her eyes stray to his left hand and back away)

(does she wanna see if she saw right or...not?)

(her head hurts)

Coran grabs her hand and lets her pull him up. Well, that’s not exactly the right word. More like, Coran grabs her hand and uses her as basically a crutch as he does a thing that’s like, being weirdly fluid yet blocky with his ankles and knees and his everything as he goes from sitting to standing straight as a board.

“What,” Pidge says flatly. Then, once more with feeling, “ _ What? How does Altean biology even work?” _

Coran just pats her hand a bit  _ too _ strong (but she guesses that the ridiculous strength is a species trait instead of just, Allura and whatever made up her genetic soup) and smiles at her. “Very well!” he chirps, and strolls away while whistling.

(it’s only later that she realizes that she’d never gotten a look at his hand)

* * *

**THEN:**

She stumbled upon Yellow through sheer luck. Her comms had spazzed out at some point when Voltron broke apart, and Yellow was honestly the hardest to find considering they were in the middle of all this, well. Yellow. (quintessence was apparently good camouflage. Who knew)

“I’m gonna go see Hunk,” she announced to Green. The response was a growl like a warning, deep and low. And, of course, Green refused to open the doors.

“What’s up, girl?” she frowned, and the control panel blinked in front of her. The readings were just...wrong, honestly, which was a surprise. (Pidge lightly smacked it, just because sometimes Green could pull mischief and  _ this was not the time _ ) Then, they starting fluctuating like the Garrison simulations had after a particularly bad hit to the ship (and the thought came to her mind unbidden, because what if the other lions had taken a bad hit, she couldn’t even tell if Yellow was online or offline because  _ everything  _ was glowing the colour of the lions’ eyes)—

—and that’s when it hit her like a freight train, because everything was glowing the colour of the lion’s eyes.

“We’re stuck in the rift,” she said quietly, and she didn’t know how she felt, because oh god they were stuck in the rift what even happened to people under long term exposure to quintessence  _ they were stuck in the rift _ —

Green rumbled warningly, and tossed her head to the side. Then the control panel went dark under her fingers and Pidge was almost ready to start shouting start throwing start  _ something _ before in all of the yellow and dashes of sickly purple, there was a speck of deep, unyielding blackness. Empty space.

“Oh,” she breathed, and blinked her eyes as another drop of red flitted across her version. Her heart goes from beating at the speed of a hummingbird’s wings to maybe just a mouse heart,  _ thump thump thump thump thump _ from stress and fear and just—everything.

Just everything.

“Let’s get Hunk out of here,” she said, and thought  _ Keith Lance Shiro _ because they were still in this place and they were sitting ducks if the lions were offline, thought  _ Allura Coran mice _ because Voltron had got them out but the castle wasn’t resistant to quintessence like the lions were, thought  _ Galra _ because fuck, she didn’t even know if the Galra were still  _ there _ —

Green’s control panel lit up under her fingers and the comms became a static  _ CRACK _ in her ear and Pidge pushed the controls forwards as far as she could go. There was the feeling of not-quite her mouth closing around something (except that was  _ Green’s  _ mouth closing around the back of Yellow’s neck) and they darted forward.

They didn’t move fast enough for all the thoughts to leave Pidge’s head, for her to leave her headache behind, for her to ignore what Keith was saying in her comms because Hunk could be hu—

“Keith!” she shouted, and winced at her own volume, because that was not a quiznaking good decision for her head. “Keith,” she repeated, but quietly this time. “Where are you?”

“Fuck if I know,” he croaked, and Pidge bit back the burst of laughter that wanted to escape from her chest, the one that felt more than a little off-kilter. “I’ve got Shiro, but I can’t—” static cut him off for a second, and  _ no no please don’t cut out _ — “—where we are, other than in the rift.”

He stopped talking after that, and Pidge tried not to worry too much, because at least they were alive even though no one else was talking and all that she knew was that Green was miraculously fine. The silence stretched on for one second, two seconds, three—before Pidge swallowed and realized it was her turn to talk.

“I’ve got Hunk.” She licked her lips, somehow feeling like they became drier after that. “I haven’t seen Lance, but Allura and Coran were thrown out of the rift earlier. Yellow’s shields are down,” and she was suddenly  _ very _ aware of how Green’s shields were pulsing around them, almost in tune to Pidge’s heartbeat, “but Green is fine. How’re Red and Black?” 

Keith didn’t say anything for a moment, and she couldn’t tell if that was the static or if that was him trying to hide something (because Keith was bad at lying, Keith’s lying was to hold his secrets close to his chest and hope that no one noticed) and she heard herself plead  _ “Keith please answer,” _ instead of feeling her lips do the movements.

(she was so scared she was so scared she was fifteen sixteen however old space makes you and she was so so scared)

( _ please let them be okay please let them be okay everyone has to be okay _ )

(  _ p l e a s e ) _

—and there was the crackling that always happened when someone exhaled into the comms. “Black is missing parts of their side, both of them don’t have shields up.”

( n o )

“What about you?” she asked, and god she hoped that the answer was  _ fine _ (except she didn’t because he’d lie he’d lie she knew that if he said that it would be a lie)

“Fine.”

( l i e )

“ _ Keith.” _ And she’s not Shiro (not dad or mom or Matt or anyone except Katie ‘Pidge’ Holt) but she was pretty sure she channeled (them) him well enough. “Tell me the truth.”

Another  _ whiiiish crrrrk  _ from breathing (was his breathing okay was something punctured?) and Keith didn’t tell her how he was doing but what to do.

“Pidge, you have to leave us. You have to go. Get Hunk out of here, I’ll deal with Shiro and find Lance.” His voice was cold, so cold and Pidge felt  _ something _ creeping at her, going from her neck to her spine to her temples to the way that Green had an ironclad home in her heart.

“ _ No!” _ she shouted, and, and, and— “I won’t, I won’t leave you guys,” she hissed, and saw the opening right in front of her, saw the way to get out of this place.

(she could leave them behind but like fucking hell was she gonna)

“This isn’t a matter of whether you want to or not. The universe needs the lions, and you can’t save  _ anyone _ if you get lost in the rift for the rest of your life. Green’s the only one with functioning shields, and those won’t last for long.”

“Shut up,” she said instead of any functional argument because (because he’s right the universe needed Voltron but she needed her family she needed them she needed them)

(home was not a place. Home was where the heart was, and her family had different pieces of her heart with them, her family was already scattered across the universe and she couldn’t let them stretch into the multiverse she couldn’t she couldn’t—)

“I won’t leave you here. I’m going to come back for all of you.” And she would she would she would  _ she’s already crossed the universe for her family the multiverse won’t stop her _ —

“Sure,” Keith huffed.

There’s something to say to that, but there was no more time because Pidge burst out of the rift, sees the castle and no Galra and deemed it safe enough before dropping off Yellow into open space because it wasn’t good but it was better than the rift—

She couldn’t slow to a stop, so she didn’t, just sent Yellow towards the castle and muttered an apology before turning right back around—

And she was  _ close close c l o s e, _ so close that there was a hair’s width between Green’s snout and the entrance of the rift—

and

it

C

L

O

S

E

D

 

R

I

G

H

T

 

T

H

E

R

E

—

* * *

**THEN:**

and pidge laughed cried screamed laughed laughed laughed

* * *

**THEN:**

n o

* * *

**NOW:**

—and Pidge blinks her eyes open from the nightmare.

( _ it’s not a nightmare, _ whispers a part of her,  _ open your eyes remember remember how you  _ **_left them there_ ** )

(and Pidge blinks once more until it is nothing more than a distant feeling)

Her fingers are digging into her mattress, and there’s sweat on her brow, and there’s something like a lump in her throat and she doesn’t know what she dreamed of but there’s a cloying panic like honey over her nose and mouth and—

—Pidge closes her eyes, opens her mouth, and  _ breathes. _

“It’s just a dream,” she murmurs, thinks of how Mom used to brush her hair back after nightmares and kiss her forehead.

( _ It’s just a dream, Katie. We’ll protect you from the monsters in your head.) _

(and she doesn’t remember, doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t but there is something telling her to look deep, deep, deep deep deep—)

(because she knows in a place she doesn’t want to)

(it isn’t just a dream)

* * *

**NOW:**

After a varga or two of attempts, Pidge decides that sleep isn’t for her today. (to-quintant? Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what type of time she should use)

So, she swings her legs up and off the bed and vaults onto the floor, standing straight up and then stumbling when the blood rushes to her head.

“Right, let’s not do that again,” she mutters, and waits for the spots to fade. Then, Pidge walks out of the room and into the corridors like she hadn’t been incredibly dizzy a few moments ago. Considering how many times she and Matt had spun around until they’d been unable to move, this is pretty mild in comparison.

Either way, step one of doing something to relieve the boredom of lying awake in bed (of trying to not be afraid of going to sleep) is a go. Now, step two: probably go find Allura or Shiro, since those two are the most likely to be awake.

(she doesn’t want to be alone)

So she heads towards the control room, because Allura is always there (and she doesn’t feel like remembering, not in the way that Shiro makes her remember she has people to find and Matt and Dad could be hurting while they’re all just  _ sitting here _ —) and it’s just...easier.

When the door slides open, Pidge makes a beeline to her chair and pulls up the holoscreen, and waits. As per usual, Allura drifts over with a bemused smile, and seats herself on the arm of Pidge’s chair in a way that takes up almost no space but feels like Allura is seating herself on a throne.

“Hello Pidge,” she says, and Pidge nods. “What are you doing at this hour?”

Suddenly, looking at her hands becomes very appealing. 

( _ you had a nightmare? _ Matt used to ask, and then wrap her up in blankets and stories until she fell asleep from the giggling)

(Allura isn’t Matt)

But, “You had a nightmare?” she asks, and Pidge isn’t particularly  _ close _ to Allura but still finds herself nodding.

“Yeah,” she sighs, and shakes her head. “What about you?”

Allura smiles, (eerily) calm and almost...robotic. “I don’t dream anymore.”

(and when Pidge falls asleep in the quiet, with Allura next to her and the stars in front—)

(there’s something about those words that haunt her)

* * *

**THEN:**

she brought hunk back

_ no more leaving people behind _

* * *

**THEN:**

the castle was wide and empty. there was no sound

(there were her footsteps, step step step in the halls)

(those didn’t count)

there was weight in her arms, cold and dead dead dead

(the only warmth left were her tears and blood, and they spilled onto Hunk’s face like stains)

(like guilt)

“allura! coran!” she cried, but her sound wasn’t strong enough

she wasn’t strong enough—

(it was a castle of the dead, of ghosts ten thousand years old and now ghosts of one day)

“i’m sorry!” she shouted, but no one answered, no one answered. “i’m sorry!”

(there was a body in her arms, there were bodies in the control room, but she couldn’t leave them couldn’t couldn’t couldn’t)

“i’m going to save you,” she whispered, “i’m going to save you i promise”

the cryopod opened and shut with a hiss, three of them did

three remained empty when they shouldn’t have been

and

and

and

pidge stumbled forward in in in

and waited for the cold—

(and green roared roared roared until there was no sound)

* * *

**NOW:**

There are things Pidge doesn’t remember. She forgets things like how many laugh lines were on Mom’s face before the crash, or the way that Haxus had looked at her right before she pushed him off the edge.

Things like how long they’ve been on the planet with corrosive black sand, whether it’s been a day, a week, a month, a  _ year _ —

She can’t answer that.

She can maybe answer how many times she’s had to patch up cracks that appear ever more frequently within the castle (except the instances pour in like a flood, like a sandstorm, and all she knows is there are  _ far _ more breakages than even a month should contain), can maybe answer how many times Lance has caught her coding and walked her to bed with pet names and a kiss (but his lips had felt cold on her temples each of the seven times) and what she is starting to think is this:

There are things she remembers.

These are not the things she needs to remember.

There are things that she forgets, maybe over and over again like wiping a hard drive.

(Pidge remembers when Matt taught her to wipe data, how he told her to do backups upon backups because you never know when you need to go nuclear)

(her first playlist had gone straight down the drain, along with half a dozen little projects. All because she’d forgotten what Matt had told her)

(she fucking  _ hates _ forgetting)

(Pidge doesn’t want to be that hard drive)

And—

—she knows that whatever is going on, she should have figured it out sooner.

So…

...Why hasn’t she?

* * *

**THEN:**

Waking up this time was different from the others.

Usually, cryosleep was a slow,  _ slow  _ process to snap out of. It had always been like thawing after a deep snow—Pidge didn’t remember experiencing one herself, but she had a cousin who’d told her about it. 

Susy had said before that it was first looking down at her body and  _ knowing _ it was there, but losing the ability to really feel it. Like your legs were made of popsicles first, but then they grew even colder and it was just legs brushing against legs. Then you went inside and started the thawing process, but first you poked your leg to see if it was just your mind messing with you.

(for the thawing, it generally wasn’t)

And when you poked, you  _ felt _ the cold except your legs didn’t feel the cold, so you waited for them to become something other than legs brushing against legs until they were pins and needles. Enough pins and needles to make you blister or bleed if they were real. 

Then, in the midst of all of that, that was when temperature came back. Came back with the pins and needles so all you could do was sit or stand or lay down and wait, with limbs made out of icicles and blisters. But, to get rid of it, you had to walk it off, leading to things like Hunk crashing into Allura after a  _ particularly _ heavy cryosleep, and the incident where Coran went into a cryopod, crashed into something, and then promptly needed to get back into another.

But in this cryosleep? The most  _ different _ feeling was the pins and needles jabbing into her brain.

_ Brainfreeze, _ Pidge thought automatically, but she hadn’t had ice cream in  _ months _ or freezies or popsicles or  _ anything _ that would make her wince to this extent. (but wow was she craving junk food now)

Instead, there was the hazy awareness of something on the edge of her brain, something that was staying quiet until everything thawed out. Except there wasn’t enough brainpower to figure out what or why or even how she could be thinking like this because she remembered enough to know that she was in a cryopod.

_ There’s something wrong, _ she thought, somewhere in between the needles in her head and the chill going slowly to numbness.  _ With the pod. _

The world went to nothing.

* * *

**NOW:**

“Pidge!” someone calls, and her first reaction is to scream.

_ Don’t leave me don’t leave me something’s wrong don’t leave me p l e a s e _ —

Then there are hands on her shoulders (too strong too cold too rigid too  _ much _ ) and she  _ shakes _ and when she comes back to, there is Allura kneeling in front of her with a grim look and the mice on hands and knees and chittering worriedly up at her.

Platt moves to pat Pidge’s knee, and it’s too heavy and his fur isn’t soft and she just can’t—

_ “Pidge,” _ says Allura, one more time. “No one is leaving you.”

Pidge blinks, blinks again and again even as her chest heaves and air feels like it’s barely forcing its way into her lungs. ( _ are you sure? _ she wants to ask, but she doesn’t, but she doesn’t)

( _ I’m scared, _ she wants to say, but she doesn’t)

“Thanks,” she gasps instead, because she is a drowning man kept from water, and it’s hardest to remember the people next to you when you feel so surprisingly, achingly alone.

And maybe that’s why she hides in Allura’s chest and lets her hands cling to the fabric of Allura’s nightgown—it doesn’t feel  _ right _ (because Allura is too rigid, too cold, too  _ not her _ ) but it’s  _ good enough, _ because Allura isn’t soft but she’s soft enough, because Allura isn’t warm but she’s warm enough, because even the mice aren’t fluffy like they were before this planet but they’re  _ good enough. _

At least, for now. They’re good enough for now.

(there’s a part of her that knows what’s wrong, that sees the silver and feels the cold and the weight and  _ knows _ )

(but there’s a bigger part of her that’s singing LA LA LA LA LA at the top of its lungs, because she doesn’t want to remember)

(she almost knows what she’s running from)

* * *

**THEN:**

She was the only one out of the pods.

She's been the only one out of the pods for  _ days, _ and she was starting to forget the sound of Hunk’s muttering against the machines, Coran’s chipper retelling of stories, Lance’s cackling when they overcame a boss in the video games.

She was the only one out of the pods.

(she was lonely)

(she was alone)

(she couldn’t bring herself to go see Green)

(she wanted Keith and Lance and Shiro to come back from the rift)

(she wanted Hunk and Coran and Allura and the mice to  _ wake up _ )

(she wanted Matt and Dad and Mom and home)

(she wanted a lot of things)

* * *

**THEN:**

The first time Pidge had been stuck on her own, Green had been asleep in a trash nebula and there had been the poofy...whatever-they-were aliens, who had decided to keep her company.

And even then, Pidge hadn’t lasted long before she’d started tinkering around, making effigies of her friends (because she hated hated hated to be alone).

There hadn’t been much, but there had been  _ life _ in that almost empty pocket of space, and it had been what kept her  _ alive. _

(she was living now, she’d escaped, she was living and her friends-family-people may or may not have been, she was living but she was far from alive)

So far, it had been a week within empty walls, and the problem was that the castle was so damn  _ big, _ with it not echoing but she almost heard her thoughts bouncing off the walls and—

She was alone. She was alone. She was alone she was alone she was a l o n e

—she was losing it  _ fuck _ .

So, the next day, she found a project (because when she looked at the rift there was nothing to be found—she couldn’t work the castle without Allura because it was losing power losing life and there was almost nothing to find about pathways to other worlds) to work on.

Except all she did was think about how Hunk was always there when she tinkered, thought about how Coran always swooped in when they were especially stuck, thought about how the mice were equal parts saviours and destroyers depending on how mischievous they were feeling that day, thought about Allura laughing when they had to chase after the mice on mischief days, thought about Shiro peeking over her shoulder and sometimes letting them fiddle around with his arm, thought about Lance listening to their technobabble with part amusement and part confusion, thought about Keith sometimes proposing the simplest solution imaginable and making it  _ click _ —

Pidge thought, and thought, and thought and thought and thought around in circles because she kept thinking and—

Her pet project clattered to the floor as her hands curled curled curled in on themselves, as she curled in on herself.

(a l o n e)

(a l o n e)

This, she thought blearily, somewhere through the fog in her brain and the tears blurring her vision,  _ This isn’t working out. _

Pidge held her head in shaky hands, and tried to breathe.

* * *

**THEN:**

She visited them at the cryopods sometimes, when her head swam with numbers and Altean letters, and figuring out where in the solar system they’d crash landed on.

(the only thing that gave her answers was the last—it was a planet unexplored by the Alteans, and the black sand was way, way different from what had been there ten thousand years ago)

(it wasn’t much of an answer)

There never was much of a change. Just the slow hissing of the pods rising out of their chambers, and everyone’s faces frozen like they’re asleep.

(she thought of what it was like, when she’d dragged Hunk out of the yellow lion with tears streaming down her faces, when she’d found Allura and Coran and the mice all on the floor with sightless eyes, how she’d put them in the cryopods but it’d been too late too late)

She glanced at the timers, and the numbers on the screen didn’t move. Just had this one symbol flashing pink and she didn’t—she wanted them to get out.

(she wanted to stop being alone please please please)

And she thought of being in a trash nebula and  _ waiting, _ with pretend friends and only Green with her and she thought of Rover and—

(would making robots be replacing them? Would—would they even be okay with it when they woke up?)

(but then she thought of loneliness, of the cold, of  _ what if they never woke up _ )

(and Pidge made her choice)

* * *

**THEN:**

She didn’t know how much time the robots took her—working on them was almost like working in a dream. (a nightmare, she could think, but they were the things saving her from the nightmares, from yellow and purple and the words  _ you need to go _ )

But they were finished eventually, even as black sand started to get into the castle and corroded the corridors. (and she knew that she should have tried to keep it clean, keep it travel worthy, but all she’d been able to do was stare at the cryopods and  _ hurt _ )

(she’d managed to keep her lab clean though, ever since black sand had started to make its way through the castle and destroyed her replica of Shiro’s arm)

(It had set her back by so  _ much _ )

But, as she finished the last touches on the mice (because she’d built all the rest, down to the very last detail because  _ she couldn’t afford to forget _ ), Pidge brushed a hand over Chulatt’s synthetic fur and smiled to herself.

(it didn’t reach her eyes. Nothing reached her eyes anymore)

When she turned them all on, after programming their personalities…

She wouldn’t be alone anymore.

* * *

**THEN:**

She had to get Keith, Shiro, and Lance back.

She had to wake up Hunk, Coran, Allura, the mice.

She had to fix this she had to get her family back she had to get her friends back she had to she had to she had to do so many things—

“Go to sleep, Pidge,” Lance said softly, even as he gave her a conspiratory grin. (and she knew knew knew it wasn’t really Lance, just a robot with his face but she wants to believe that it was him, that all of them were  _ them _ —) “It’s pretty late, and you look tired.”

“No,” she said but she yawned in the same breath, and Hunk picked her up anyway, (not Hunk, her brain chimed in, but she promptly told it to shut up) and he took her to her room anyway. “Stop cradling me,” she grumbled, but didn’t fight as Hunk laughed and laughed and laughed.

“No can do,” he rumbled, like he was about to go to sleep himself. Then, “You’re pretty small, Pidge,” he said, and smiled like the sun. Like everything was going to be alright in the end.

(she wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe him so  _ much _ —)

Pidge let her head fall back and the rest of her body relax, a hand eventually falling onto Hunk’s arm.

There was steel under her fingers, stiff and freezing and—

It wasn’t human. It was close enough.

(Pidge pretended)

(she learned to get good at that)

* * *

**THEN:**

Eventually, she forgot what it was like. The robots improved improved improved, and it was harder and harder to remember what she was supposed to be doing when the cryopod chamber was always out of reach, and her friends were  _ right there. _

(she forgot)

(she forgot about rifts and heartbreak and that Matt and Dad weren’t the only ones missing)

(she forgot she forgot she forgot)

(it was so easy to forget people were missing when they seemed to be right next to you)

(so easy to forget when you didn’t want to remember)

* * *

**NOW:**

She dreams about cryopods and swirling yellow-purple-yellow and what it feels like to be alone alone alone for about three weeks before she cracks. Cracks under the weight of icy blues, under the weight of bodies in her arms and hot tears streaking her cheeks.

(she cracks cracks cracks and this time there’s no way to keep the hurt at bay)

So Pidge tears off her sheets and starts barefoot through the castle (and it’s quiet oh so quiet because it’s that time right before artificial dawn that no one’s really up), hearing nothing but the quiet step of her feet on the castle floors. It’s barely a sound at all.

Her pyjama shirt slips down her shoulder, and there’s the sudden sting of cold against unprotected flesh. Her feet, at this point, are freezing on the tiles.

(desert nights get cold, she remembers, thinks of rooftops and headphones and waiting for a sign that her family is out there even as her fingers slowly go numb)

(the castle shouldn’t be cold. Not when Allura and Coran are there to keep it in shape)

(then again, she shouldn’t be thinking that her dreams are real but she does anyway)

And she’s about to place her hand on the panel and let the door slide open, when a metal hand gently takes hers.

“You don’t want to do that, Pidge,” Shiro says softly, and she can’t see his face but she can imagine the little worry lines around his eyes, how his face had been the slightest bit  _ off _ lately whenever Pidge did something that she shouldn’t have and paid close enough attention.

Like when she’d gone to see Green, once, except Green couldn’t wouldn’t didn’t respond and Shiro had found out and he’d pulled her away even as she kept crying because  _ Green please _ .

**THEN**

She’d made the skin, made the bodies, made the replicas as close to life as possible—the castle made them  _ alive. _

(it hadn’t brought back the life in their eyes)

**NOW**

And she thinks she could listen, because—

Shiro is always looking out for them all. Shiro reminds her of better days, of Matt’s smile and  _ Pidge we’re going to Kerberos oh my god! _ and how Dad used to point at her with a curved smile and had said  _ you’re gonna do great things one day. _

But there is black sand on the floor, and all she has to do is look back to see that she hadn’t cleaned the castle well enough.

(and there is something screaming inside of her, screaming screaming screaming because she should have done better, she  _ should have done better by them _ , but Katie-Pidge-Katie’s head is full of nightmares and silver and all she can do is curl into herself like a flower when she sees the exposed wires on Shiro’s ankle.

“You’re not real,” she says (and she’s in a dream-nightmare-dream), and the world blinks yellow behind her eyes when she rips her hand away and slams it on the panel.

“PIDGE!” Shiro shouts, but Pidge tosses back black sand (and she needs to know needs to know  _ why isn’t Shiro himself is he the only one _ ) and darts toward the middle of the cryochamber.

And then it happens. Slowly, slowly, and then all at once.

The cryopods hiss around her, like steam released from a kettle or the soft tones of a snake, and start to rise up up up, with their screens covered in pink symbols like a shield. And Shiro comes up to her and places a hand on her shoulder, except it’s not his hand and it’s not his voice when a robotic monotone tells her—

“Go look at them. They are dead. We will help you forget again.”

She listens this time, bare feet against black sand and the corroding castle floors, and she goes up to the nearest cryopod before wiping away fog on its glass.

_ You don’t want to do that, _ the robot had told her, and it was right right right.

Pidge—

She stares for a while, just looking behind the glass, because it can’t be real it can’t it can’t it can’t—

Allura’s eyes stare back, as well as they could when they were the colour of the lions’ eyes. Glowing bright yellow. And she can’t recognize the words Allura is mouthing even with the translators in her head, but there is pain in her eyes and  _ she’s moving even through cryosleep. _

And

Pidge

remembers

—

—yellow-purple-yellow,  _ don’t worry I will come back for you I promise I promise I promise _ —

—Voltron tearing itself apart at the seams, and it is Pidge’s fault Pidge’s fault of course it’s Pidge fault—

—Cold hands on her shoulders walking her to her room and she knows this isn’t real but she wants it to be real so badly she can taste it on her tongue—

— _ p l e a s e, don’t leave me alone _ —

— _ I can’t be alone _ —

— **_I don’t want to be alone_ ** —

—and forgetting because it’s easier, because the castle helps, because even as black sand starts eroding her home, it’s better to let it die than ask herself why Allura hasn’t moved them away—

—and she stumbles stumbles back into another pod, jumps away and she can see Hunk through the imprints that she’s made on the glass—

— _ let us die, _ he whispers without sound, through a pink grid on the glass and glowing yellow eyes—

—and she can’t she can’t she can’t because even though she made herself forget, even though she abused the castle’s technology, even though even though even though even though—

—”I  _ can’t, _ ” she sobs, and Hunks shakes his head because she is a disappointment disgrace foolish little girl who couldn’t even be alone—

—and the mice scurry around her feet except the sand pokes through their paws and they are splitting open even as they rush to console her because they are the only ones she’d programmed as being able to go everywhere anywhere—

—and she falls to her knees and Coran’s pod eventually loses the fog on its own, Allura and Hunk’s lose the rest of theirs, and the other three pods are empty empty empty because  _ she’d left them behind _ —

—”I’m sorry!” she screams but no one is listening not anyone who is alive—

—and she can’t stay here not when the robots are waiting—

—not when she’ll forget again—

—not when Allura and Coran and Hunk and the mice are all looking at her with glowing yellows and waiting for her to  l e t g o l e t t h e m g o

—she—

—can’t—

—s t a y—

—so she runs out of the cryochamber—

—runs into her room—

—puts on armour fine as it’s ever been, slips her helmet on over Matt’s glasses because that’s the only thing she refuses to leave behind—

—and she  _  r u n s _ —

—out of the castle—

—because out is enough because steel under her fingers isn’t enough not when she  _ knows _ —

—they aren’t human.

Everyone she loves is gone or dead.

She is  a l o n e

—And she races out into a sandstorm and her next move is stupid she knows it’s  _ stupid _ because who the fuck goes out into something that corrodes inorganic material when that is what your armour is made of—

—but she is desperate.

And Pidge turns her jetpack on and soars up up up through the sandstorm because she needs to leave she needs to get off of this planet she needs to—

_ Something. _

But sand and wind are stronger than altean technology in the end, and all she does is send herself spiraling into the storm out of control (like her mind like her thoughts like the rift) and Pidge can’t  _ breathe _ can’t  _ think _ can’t do  _ anything _ as she’s thrown around like a ragdoll, right up to the moment where the storm slams her into the castle walls again and again and  a g a i n

(and she has only the brief thought to be grateful that she’s still conscious, even as her body breaks under the strain because this way at least she knows what she’s doing, knows that she can try try again to save her friends save her family because she’s failed them all)

and a door opens behind her and she is  _ flung _ down the castle walls until she crashes to a stop, armour decaying around her and glasses cracking into pieces and her bones shattering and blood clotting at the back of her head, starting to pool where her skin had been exposed because there is sand in her blood and cuts on her body and she can barely feel herself breathe as she coughs blood and stains her lips red—

And her eyes blink close, just as cold hands start to move her around.

* * *

**NOW:**

Pidge wakes up.

Waking up is stumbling out of a cryopod into metallic arms, seeing all her creations (because she’d made them, she’d made them because she can’t handle being alone) waiting patiently and with chunks missing, whether it’s exposed wires or missing limbs or missing all their artificial skin.

_ I left them, _ she thinks, and they’re not real but they’re real enough—

—she left them again.

There’s nothing in particular that she says—she stumbles out of the cryopod in broken armour and her vision cracked (and it’s the glasses she thinks and she wants needs to cry but she can’t she can’t she can’t—) and all Pidge says is “Stay,” as she walks to her lab.

(she is dead)

(that is something she knows well enough)

(her body doesn’t need to be in the same state for that)

The halls are bright and empty and quiet—the step of her boots on the floor make barely a sound.

And she walks walks walks, right up until there is a spear at her nose and something that reminds her of Matt holding it.

Pidge doesn’t blink. She doesn’t care enough for that.

And the Matt rears back, even as the Dad behind him has blood drain out of its face (and if they’re her creations, she’s done a very good job, even though she can’t figure out why she’d ever program like that), and she hears her name—

“K-K-Katie?”

—but it doesn’t feel like hers. So Pidge tilts her head and forgets, thinks of yellow-purple-yellow and how the castle floor is covered with black sand, even as she wonders how their feet don’t corrode.

“Are you real?” she asks, and they look look look—

Look like they don’t know. And she doesn’t know either (and she thinks she’ll forget), so Pidge-Katie doesn’t smile but doesn’t frown, merely opens her mouth once again to repeat the question.

_ Are you real? _

(it’s okay if they’re not. Because if they’re not…)

(she’ll forget)


End file.
